Murder and rape, mandatory death sentence for people convicted. I'm not sure I would oppose that myself. Drug trafficking and armed robbery, not so much.

Less than 80 executions per year for the last couple years. Either:

They have a much lower population than I thought
They are really bad at catching murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and drug traffickers
They are really bad at convicting murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and drug traffickers
or
They don't have very many murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and drug traffickers

If it's the last one, then maybe their system is working better than mine - at least their citizens seem relatively well protected by these laws.

By way of comparison, Saudi Arabia has 28 million people, Texas has 26 million people, pretty close.
Saudi, 2011: 79 convictions TOTAL for all 4 offenses.
Texas, 2011: 36,933 convictions for just the first three (not including drug trafficking)
Murder 1,089
Rape 7,445
Armed Robbery 28,399

I'm not sure their system is all that bad after all. Not saying it's great either, but maybe we could learn something from it.

"Whores perform the same function as priests, but far more thoroughly." - Robert A. Heinlein

Beheading is such a boring way to execute people, so is shooting and injections.

Can I vivisect the people instead?

The people closely associated with the namesake of female canines are suffering from a nondescript form of lunacy.
"Anti-environmentalism is like standing in front of a forest and going 'quick kill them they're coming right for us!'" - Jake Farr-Wharton, The Imaginary Friend Show.

Murder and rape, mandatory death sentence for people convicted. I'm not sure I would oppose that myself. Drug trafficking and armed robbery, not so much.

Less than 80 executions per year for the last couple years. Either:

They have a much lower population than I thought
They are really bad at catching murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and drug traffickers
They are really bad at convicting murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and drug traffickers
or
They don't have very many murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and drug traffickers

If it's the last one, then maybe their system is working better than mine - at least their citizens seem relatively well protected by these laws.

By way of comparison, Saudi Arabia has 28 million people, Texas has 26 million people, pretty close.
Saudi, 2011: 79 convictions TOTAL for all 4 offenses.
Texas, 2011: 36,933 convictions for just the first three (not including drug trafficking)
Murder 1,089
Rape 7,445
Armed Robbery 28,399

I'm not sure their system is all that bad after all. Not saying it's great either, but maybe we could learn something from it.

You shouldn't look a convictions to tell how well the "system" is working but rather the incidences of the of crimes themselves. Is Joe Shmoo less likely to be murdered or robbed in Saudi Arabia than he is in Texas?